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By: Alison Lyne,
on 11/26/2016
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Haying 8x10 inches acrylic paint
This time around I'm showing a small painting I did a few years ago. The painting is based on an old family photo showing how hay for livestock was handled in the 1930s. Hay was cut, left out to dry and then raked up with a “dump rake” into huge piles. Those huge piles were scooped up by the pitchfork full, into a wagon. Which was transported from the hayfield to a barn via a mule drawn wagon, then scooped up, by a hay fork (think a huge double arm scoop, sorta like what you use in a mechanical arcade game machine with crane claw). It was swung into the barn where it was stored. You can see the opening in the top of the barn where the hay fork came out to scoop the hay up in the loft. Then in the winter it was doled out, again by the pitchfork full, fed from hay racks on the ground floor of the barn. All this was by hand, mind you!
I've always been fascinated by the older black and white photos.....they usually have such a wealth of detailing.....you can see almost every blade of grass! Every time I see a really neat old photo, I always want to “see” it in colour. Since I tend to solve a lotta of my desires with paint.....I will often take an old black and white photo and bring it up to colour. It's a nice challenge to see if I can get the black and white values correct.....while still injecting what I feel would be the right colours to fit the scene.
But bringing an old black and white photo into colour, offers another neat opportunity.....a chance to learn about the circumstances that the photo is presenting. In this case, it's revisiting a vanished farming era. Other times, painting someone's family member from an old faded black and white photo, lets me learn more about that person in the photo......and how the person commissioning my painting really “saw” that family member. I always learn SO much!
By: Alison Lyne,
on 11/19/2016
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Red Vase - Acrylic - 8x10 inches
This time around I've got another of the small 8x10 canvases that I wanted to do a small still life on......an idea that doesn't really rate a full size canvas. A summer or two ago I'd taken a lotta flower photos in various “antique store finds” vases. This vivid red vase just seemed to beg for the flashy white peonies that had just a hint of the same red in their centers. I positioned it for a back lite “pose” and this one was my fav.
I sketched the photo onto the canvas and started painting. I laid in the bare bones of the painting in the first session:
The next session I did some glazes with different reds on the translucent red glass vase. Using three different red glazes really intensified the red of the vase. Since the red vase was the star of this painting, I wanted to paint it first and let everything else literally “pale down” beside it.
I continued on painting till I felt satisfied with the values of the different flower petals and the other background elements. I was especially pleased that I could contrast the petals on the left against the curtains in shadows. I also like these smaller canvases as they wrap the canvas all the way around the sides to allow me to paint them with a continuation of the painting itself.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 11/13/2016
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Last Saturday our local library invited me to do a mini program on Christmas Ornament making. I had been making a bunch of Christmas ornaments while watching nite time TV. After the program director saw some of my designs, she asked me to share some of the techniques I'd been practicing for Christmas ornament making.
I had a box full of cloth scraps from loooooong ago, along with a bunch of embroidery thread in lotsa colours. So's I came up with some designs for Christmas ornaments, using cloth scraps, and threads covering styrofoam balls.
A while back I'd gotten interested in temari ball making.....a Japanese needlework technique also using stryofoam balls and threads. Of course, being me, a lotta colour was involved in the designs.....so I was a happy camper. I'd made some ornaments using the traditional Japanese methods.......
but wanted to do some simpler ornaments using Christmas themed cloth and coloured threads. These are the kind of ornaments we worked on at the library program.
A few lovely ladies joined me at the library on Saturday, and we had a ball (pun intended!) covering stryofoam balls with with fabrics and stitching red and green threads around the centers. We added some hand made cording and hand made tassles and viola! We all had lovely Christmas ornaments to start off the holiday season.
Thanks so much to the Logan County Library for suggesting this event and all the lovely folks who turned out to have a bit-o-holiday crafting fun and share some laughs.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 10/24/2016
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Frank with his sculpture in cherry wood titled String Player
Winning First Prize in 3-D sculpture
at the Pennyroyal Juried Art Exhibition at the Hopkinsville Community College Auditorium Gallery
Today I'm sharing a pic I took of Frank at the reception for the Hopkinsville Art Guild's annual Pennyroyal Art show. He's posed with his (first in 3D) prize winning sculpture: String Player. I took the photo with my phone, and it was smart enough to prompt me with a request to identify the “person” with Frank, meaning the sculpture!
I also had a couple of paintings hanging in the show:
Vine Ripened Puppys for Sale
and
WinterGlow
Here's a link to more about the Pennyroyal Art Show:
By: Alison Lyne,
on 10/8/2016
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BLUE JAR
This blog post shows off a bit about a small acrylic 8 x 10 on stretched canvas piece called Blue Jar. After seeing friends do series of smallish works (8x8 inches or 8x10 inches) I decided I'd try a few. I wanted to try a coupla ideas that I liked, but felt wouldn't rate a full size canvas.
So's I grabbed a two pac of inexpensive stretched canvases. The bad news is the canvases were really thin material, compared to more expensive duck cloth canvases I'd painted on in the past. The good news is the canvas was indeed really thin.......so thin I could use an old illustrator trick of transferring a drawing using a light box. In other words, I put the cropped (both digitally in Photoshop and after printing out....with scissors) photo I'd taken of the jar, and put it behind the canvas. I shinned a bright light behind the canvas and photo, and viola! I could easily trace off the main outlines of the jar with paint. Thus getting the image transferred in one fell swoop! Here's what the backside looked like.
So I had the main outlines on canvas and I could start painting. Tho' the main subject was the cobalt blue jar, I was designing things under the “mostly, some and a bit” guideline. So's it was going to be mostly yellow, some blue, and bits of red......i.e. A triad color scheme.
I got this far in my first session:
I wanted to do this piece fairly quickly and use larger brush strokes than I usually do. My imagination had been fired by some really nice impressionistic artwork I'd seen recently. I have to admit I was drawn in by all the lovely reflections on the jar and found myselves reverting to my old detailing habits. In the end, I went back in and removed some of the excessive brushwork in the background to allow the detailing in the jar to shine.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 9/29/2016
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This time around I'm showing a bitty illustration called “Wanna Play”? It came from an idea I've been messing around with for a story line about a “boy and his puppy”. I've been working on visual communication between characters, and I thought it would be cute to show the puppy and little boy “communicating” using a puppy's “play” crouch signal. When you see a dog or puppy doing this crouch.....you just know that he's saying “Do you wanna play with me”?
Before I drew the entire scene, I needed to firm up the little boy character a bit. So's I did a few head sketches to see just how I wanted the little boy to look. I'm still working on the whole “keep it simple” thing......but I've found that if I use paint to “sketch” the characters and remain focused on establishing the masses of the characters, I get the feeling/gestures quicker.
I took what I learned from the sketches, and drew a simplified little boy mirroring the puppy's play pose, using the green hedge to show the bow to the backs of both the puppy and the little boy's. Even without a lotta detailing......I wanted to let the poses of the puppy and little boy “speak for themselves”. But tho' I liked the left hand version of the little boy......it was still a bit too “realistic” for what I had in mind. So's I tried a younger version, but it still didn't quite suit either.
So's it was back to the “painting” board. I tried another version, this time changing the crop from landscape to portrait. I worked on keeping my “realistic” habits in check and concentrated on keeping things simple. I wanted to show the most important part of this scene......the interaction between the two characters.
I really enjoyed putting a lotta energy in the background bushes, with bold strokes of colour. This emphasized the simpler foreground figures with their warm colors and graduated modeling.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 9/10/2016
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Illustration from the SCBWI idea prompt: SWIFT
So........SCBWIdoes this “thing” for their monthly email INSIGHT segment.....it's an itty bitty contest where members draw something to a suggested prompt. This month's prompt is “SWIFT'.
For one of my illustrated books, G is for Grits, A Southern Alphabet, I illustrated a little boy pretending to be a stock car race driver. He had on a toy helmet, was sitting in a chair and was using an old toy wagon wheel as his steering wheel.
Well, I had always like this illustration, so's I thought I'd do a slightly different version for the prompt. For my sketch this time I added a doggie copilot and speed blurs against a plain background. I made a sketch, including a seat belt for the boy and a tiny chair for the doggie, duck taped to the little boy's chair.
Then I took that sketch and made a sheet with four of them printed out. I used this sheet for a “cheat sheet” studies of black and white values, where I learned that a strong light and dark gave a bit of drama to the scene. I also did a couple of colour sketches, and decided on my colour theme.
And since I'm having trouble silencing that old habit of including EVERYTHING in a sketch, I went ahead and did a teensy black and white line drawing, showing everything in great detail.
OK......now that I'd gotten that (uber detailed) version out of my mind, I concentrated on being more loose in my colour illustration. Now a days, I'm trying to go for “Draw tightly.....paint loosely”. During the painting process part of this, I ended up jettisoning the doggie side kick.....he was just to “heavy”.....in a visual kinda way. I'm sure he'll show up in a future illo!
You can see the finished illo at the top of the page.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 9/3/2016
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A loooooong while back I wrote a bitty story, Hidy-Bye Boy and made a “dummy” for it. In this case, i.e. children's picture book illustration a “dummy” refers to a practice or mock up of a book idea. It includes the text of the story, laid out in sequence and rough illustrations showing what you have in mind. Especially when an illustrator “writes” a book, quite often a LOT of the story will be told using the pictures......with the words providing key directions. So's a mock up of how the author/illustrator plans on telling the story is crucial in letting a publisher know the author/illustrator's vision for the picture book.
This pencil sketch is the first incarnation of page one of the story's text: “Hidy-Bye Boy loved to play hide and seek. He would hide when it was time to......” It shows the main character, Hidy-Bye boy playing hide and seek with his little sister counting down to go and find him.
At the time I was working on this dummy I was going thru a Photoshop phase, and I decided to “sketch” the dummy page using outlines and “fill” in Photoshop to show what was going on.
It had the advantage of being clear about what was going on in the sketch. But I also lost some of the charm of the pencil sketch. So recently, I took up this project again.
I've been doing a lot of classical painting of people, landscapes and wildlife. In this painting spree, I've “remembered” or revisited a lot of really nice planning techniques. One of which is to split your painting into only light,medium,dark sections to see if you have the focus on the main point of your composition. So that technique resulted in this little sketch being done again, this time in three gradients of black and white.
So now I had a clue as to a value map for my illustration. I then decided on my colors and matched the light, medium and dark values (and intensity) of the different colors I wanted to use with my black and white color map. You can see the result at the top of the post.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 8/26/2016
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Wedding dress from Customs House Museum collection
8 x 10 inches painted on bristol board with acrylic paints
This bitty blog post is all about inspiration striking from the most a routine online perusal. On Facebook, I ran across a post from the Customs House Museum, Clarksville, TN, that showed one of the thousands of items in their collections.
The image was of an old wedding dress worn by Temperance Catherine Joslin in 1844. For some reason that image of an old wedding dress just struck me as something I could make “come alive”. I took the image and drafted up a sketch of a young lady in the dress in a backyard wedding setting. I carefully counted the pleats of the collar..(3 each) plus one going “off shoulder” and a final one not on the sleeves but connecting the sleeves with the bodice of the dress. The bodice had diagonal lines in the bodice itself. The ¾ sleeves each had 3 pleats finishing with a dash of lace. It closely followed heirloom sewing techniques of the period.....i.e bodice shaping and sleeve trims using tucks in the material.
I transferred the sketch over to some bristol board and painted up the entire composition in acrylics. I wanted it to have a back lit sunny day look.....with a dash of impressionism. I premixed my colours and it “painted up” very quickly. I really enjoyed turning the lines into masses that resolved into a blushing bride in her wedding dress.
This was an enjoyable painterly type “quickie” sketch. Something that took advantage of an idea that came across my mind's eye and that I hope brought a bit-o-history to life. Museums, like the Customs House Museum, are great places to get "quickie art sparks".
An enjoyable bit of artwork like this, reminds me to be on the look out for chance impressions that can spark an art “quickie”.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 8/19/2016
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We Are Just Messing About
Acrylic paints on 16 x 20 stretched canvas, my own photo references and imagination
This painting is another one in my Pictures + Words collection. My aim this time was to show a group of folks “just messing about” in the park on a sun lit day. My artistic aims were to learn more about : Composition, values (lights and darks), gestures, color choices and masses (broad lights and darks to define a form.)
To that end I gathered some reference photos and began sketching. One little axiom I'd made up was to “draw tightly, paint loosely” or draw accurately from my photographic references but draw with the idea of masses instead of photographic detailing. To help with that, I took the photos into Photoshop, and reduced them to black and white, then “posterized” them, rendering the masses of the forms of the figures without detailing. This allowed for clothing/color/personalization changes at will, without feeling I had to adhere to the photos too strictly. These printouts are what I used to “sketch” onto the canvas. I again used the “power of thirds” to locate important features at the “sweet spots” of my canvas. Here is the canvas divided into thirds with my handy dandy elastic strings.
In my head I was also planning the lights and darks of the whole painting. Greg Albert, in his The Simple Secret to Better Painting has a bunch of nice axioms, but the one I chose for this painting was: Mostly, Some and a Bit. It can easily apply to values, colors and detailing.
I took my Photoshop posterized sketches and printed out a couple of tiny ones on some bristol board, and used them for color/compositional “mini-mes” or thumbnail sketches. I used my color wheel to decide on a triadic color scheme and proceeded to mix up my basic paints. From my previous experiments in using greys to keep my color scheme in balance, I mixed up a set of greyed colours and then used some of the original tube colors for color “sparks”. I've tried this on the basis of James Gurney's Color and Light book. Premixing greyed colors is a great way not to “fight” too raw tube colors......and allow your color “sparks” to sing 
After establishing my compositional road map, light and dark value road map, mass and color road maps......I was ready to go. I laid in the basic lights and darks, making gesture, and facial changes, from the original photos, as I came to them. I wanted to make all these disparate folks look like they were all hanging out together. I then pulled up an oldie but goodie technique of glazing. I glazed the background tree masses till they were just distant background blurs, the better to focus on the people. As you can see I started off with a lotta greys, but the final painting is very colourful.
The planning process is a bit new to me, but I'm learning SO much from each one I do. It pulls together many things I've learned over the years......but have never combined quite this way in my painting planning. It's lovely to conceive a painting, with "bookish helpers" (i.e. re-reading from different technique books I have on hand) whenever I hit a snag in bringing a concept to a full painting.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 8/13/2016
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Green Glow
18x24 inches on Crescent w/c board using various watercolors and gouche
My own photo reference
This time around I'm doing a watercolor of a scene I see each morning during my AM walk. It doesn't ALWAYS look this way, but springtime around here can be LUSH!
I transferred my drawing of the scene onto the Crescent watercolor board, and laid in some spots of misket, (they are the slightly brownish blobs in the photo). I then did liberal poured washes of yellow, red and bits of blue in shadow areas. You'll note the distinct bow of the watercolour board after all the washes I poured.
I immediately laid the bowed watercolor board right beside an air vent and left it over night. The next day, I found the board quite dry and totally flat! There was a tensy bit of separation between the paper and the board, but it was minimal and on the edges that go underneath the mat. So I went ahead with individual placements of intense watercolour Phthalo green over the yellows and blues.
After laying in the pinks of the azalea and dogwood blossoms, the darks of the tree trunk, and the lavenders of the background trees, I removed the misket blobs that reserved the whites I needed for the sunlit water, grass and flowers.
Here I'm laying in detailing in the two birdbaths, shadows of surrounding bushes and grasses, and most importantly the shadows of the dogwood tree branches in the green green grass. Here comes in the “.....grass is different than snow” part. When I originally envisioned this piece, I wanted to do a spring version of this winter snow scene:
But when I used the same strategy of masking the white of the snow and pouring on the watercolor shadows......it didn't look “grassy” at all! I needed grass texture in all that smooth green pour.
So I began “texturing” the foreground's “glow”. I scrubbed, I daubed, up errant spots of green watercolour, and detailed grass and blossoms and branches. I added deeper colours where needed, and in other spots I added white and yellow and green gouche, (opaque watercolors).
It took a lot of different techniques for this painting, but then a sunlit “glow” takes a lotta effort, if you aren't Mother Nature!
By: Alison Lyne,
on 8/5/2016
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Detail of Chocolatier 20x30 inches on black illustration board
Using mostly Polychromos colored pencils, Daniel Smith watercolours and Golden Open Acrylics – Used an old family photo and my own photo references
This time around I'm mixing THREE media, using colored pencils, watercolors and acrylics. I ran across a photo of this lovely lady in a stash of old family photos. She was with a few friends posing beside a pond and looking ever so stylish. Her dress, of striped duplioni silk drew me just as much as her smile. I pulled up a pic I'd taken of an old Nashville building and combined them in this drawing I did on black illustration board. The dress, face and hands are actually painted with a thin coat of acrylic white.
I wanted her and her dress to stand out the most, which is why I painted the dress, face and hands with the white paint, to use that as a surface that was already bright. I wanted the background window and awning to stay well.....in the background. So I used mostly Polychromos coloured pencils to draw in the striped awning, window reflections and window display, leaving the black background for the awning shadow and window glass. The Polychromos pencils covered the black wonderfully, but kept their place in the total composition.
Now comes the watercolor part. In my mind's eye, when I saw the old sepia photo, I “saw” a highly reflective silk dupolni material.....gold coloured shot with a bit of rose and green....sort of a triple gold look. When I looked thru my watercolour stock, the colours that fit the bill were mostly Daniel Smith colours. I put out a few of them, and brushed them on, horizontally across the skirt, using a “fur” brush you can see off to the side. This gave me fine lines to show the cloth's weave. Then the fun part.....”erasing” some of the watercolour paint with plain water, over those brightest highlights in the folds of the cloth. Darker watercolours brushed off onto the plain black illustration board let the dress go 'round the girls body and off into heavy shadow.
Here's the completed painting showing what was used where:
And a final image in the frame, showing the little “mini-me” image that I did before I started. It's sort of a thumbnail, on the black illustration board just to see what the different media would do.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 7/29/2016
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Learning Apple
various watercolors and a few watercolor pencils
on 140 lb weight “mystery” watercolor scrap paper
my own photo
Recently I “put on/presented/played at” a little Watercolor Playdate hosted by my local library Logan County Public Library. (Big shout out here to the lovely and very helpful staff).
I decided to do this 'cause I wanted to “play with” a few other local watercolor folks. I dreamed up an itty bitty program and gathered together a “kit”....(i.e. Anything to do with watercolor from my studio) and went to the playdate.
My basic aim was to show three simple ways to corral your watercolors so's each color is just where you want it. I showed off misket, wax colored pencil, and just plain ol' water surface tension.
At home, I made up a photo of a brightly lit apple, drew it out on a bit of board, and made a quickie template that I used to trace off the outline of the apple, and the bottom half of the apple with the shadow. I used that to make up two sets of watercolor sketches on paper scraps. One with misket separating the apple and table from the background, so's we could play with dark intense watercolor backgrounds. Rather than waiting for that to dry.....watching paint dry is normally a ton of fun for me......but not so much when you only have an hour for the project, I did a second set of watercolor sketches with the backgrounds already done.
We started off with soaking the prepared watercolor sketch scraps so's we could do the “soak and slap” method of wetting and stabilizing the paper on scraps of plexiglass. I showed off this method on this blog a while back here. Then everyone started laying in bits of the background yellow/red/blues watercolor from the three primary watercolors they'd brought from home. We used styrofoam plates for palettes.
After we finished with our backgrounds we set them aside to dry and take home later. Then I brought out the prepared samples where I had already laid in a watercolor background. I noted that the washes dried about half again lighter than what they'd looked like when first painted. I'd also used a bit of salt crystals....... just 'cause.
I let everyone put in a dot of misket on the apple's highlight spot, remove the dried misket for the background line, and trace off the bottom part of the apple and shadow with a wax Prismacolor colored pencil. I wanted to show that wax colored pencils can be very effective at corralling a watercolor wash. I did a blog post about this here.
After the highlight spot was dry, everyone set to painting the apple. We put enough of a wash of water on the apple that, surrounded by the dry paper, it bowed a bit. We “encouraged“ it to bow down so's the red washes would go towards the center shadow of the apple.
Finally when the apple reds were almost dry, we washed a bit of clear water over the shadow area of the apple and and followed that with a wash of blue over the white and over the shadow side of the apple. This was “corralled” by the white wax pencil outline. We “encouraged” the blue to pool at the deepest shadow point, the nexus of the apple and shadow point. We had left the end of the shadow just bounded by the water tension of the water wash. As we tilted it back and forth the shadow automatically graduated itself.
After the washes sorta kinda dried, we looked over each other's work and it was SO interesting to see just how much the color choices made each learning apple unique!
Best of all we all gave ourselves permission to “play with our paints”. If you are only doing something on a scrap.....you can try anything.....without guilt or pressure. You never know just what you might discover when you play!
Give yourself a “play date”, whether solo or with a few of your “friends in watercolor”. Grab some scraps of watercolor paper, some odd watercolors you've been dying to try, your fav watercolor brush, and an hour of your time. See just how much fun you can have “watching paint dry”!
By: Alison Lyne,
on 7/22/2016
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This blog post is doing double duty......both a cover reveal for the latest middle grade adventure, The Blue Pool, by Rosalyn Rikel Ramage and a bit about some of the artwork done by yours truly.
I've been lucky enough to illustrate three other titles for Rosalyn,......The Tracks, The Windmill and The Graveyard.
All are about the fictional adventures of a real family set in 1914 western Kentucky. Rosalyn weaves lovely fiction with down home details and a lively dash of fantasy adventure. This latest installment mixes together a talking fish named Jewel,
a helpful gull named Quoddy,
with a dash of a treasure stealing pirate named Gustav
...and well you'll just have to read the story to see how they all come together!
The three black and white character sketches above, were tightened up and rendered in ink along with a couple of other black and white sketches of important scenes in the book. After inking in the lines, I scanned them in, cleaned them up, and they were ready to send off.
I really enjoyed the challenge of painting the cover. I used acrylic paints on some bristol board using strong brush strokes to give the foliage energy. I contrasted that with the stillness of the blue pool right before being disturbed by Little Will's dangerous slipping and sliding into the deep blue pool waters. This was done with multiple glazing to show the depth of the water.
I so appreciated getting to work on this project.....it was a blast to get to follow along with Emma Mae's latest adventures.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 7/16/2016
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16 x 20 inches on canvas
acrylic paints (both standard drying and long drying)
reference: old family photo and my imagination
This painting idea started out with an old sepia colored family photo. I'd seen it around for years, and thought it just SO filled with cuteness. I couldn't help but add my own “bit of the story” by adding the tomato crate that the puppies are sitting in, and the much chewed upon sign with “puppys for sale”.
Since the photo was sepia colored or virtually black and white I got to invent all the colors on my own. I started out with my handy dandy home made color wheel and a slightly subdued colour scheme, you can see outlined in red. I picked out my paint tube colors and mixed up four little boxes of base colors for the colour scheme. I then did four “thumb nails” or itty bitty color try outs of which color scheme I wanted to go with.
I then took my pencil sketch and traced it onto the canvas. I double checked my composition strategy of the “Powers of Three” with four stretchy elastic strings wrapped around the canvas....two going one way and two going cross wise. This gave me marking that divided the 16 x 20 canvas into thirds.....AND.....most importantly gave me the four “sweet spots” that suggested where I might locate my most important parts of the painting. One was the head of one of the pups, and the other was the top of the sign: “Puppys for Sale”.
With my idea firmly composed, I confidently set to work painting. I decided, after a bit of research, that this was a Model T car, approx 1900 ish or so. So that made it have to be black. The photo showed the spindly tires and the large running board that the puppies were sitting on. The front seat had no door, just a opening in the car's surface. For the composition, I luved the repetition of half circles broken by the strong dividing line of the running board. I had played around with cropping the source photo till I got an arrangement I liked.
Once I had the relatively dull Model T black exterior finished with a few warm and cool touches, and put some mud on the tires and running board I was able to go onto the “ice cream work” of painting the puppies. Keeping in mind that so far I had just used the four base colors of red, blue,green and dark to paint the Model T and background grass, I thought I'd introduce a really warm brown to work with in painting the puppies. Both 'cause I wanted to emphasize the importance of the foreground puppy grouping using a new color and 'cause that warm brown was just how I'd always thought they'd look.
After finishing the puppies, I quickly painted in the tomato crate with the red“Vine Ripened” lettering. I had taken a photo of a bit of paper with “Puppys for Sale” printed on it. I had taped it to a box and taken a photo of it......so's to get the right perspective. I had crumpled up the paper before taking the photo in strong sunlight, because I wanted to show the texture of the folds in my choice of paint colors for the white paper. (Yes, white paper CAN show colors)
Frank came up with the perfect final “bit-o-cuteness” for the painting. He suggested that I have a corner of the sign chewed off and a bit of the remainder hanging out of the mouth of the most soulful looking of the puppies.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 7/8/2016
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Detail from Play in the Park
18 x 24 inches, acrylic paints on gessoed masonite
This time around I'm showing a couple of details from another Work In Progress, Play in the Park. The concept is how different groups of people, all watching a Shakespeare play performed outdoors in a park, can be in their own little worlds. All the world may be a stage......but in this case different plays are going on in different parts of the picture.
As is often the case with my paintings, I have the concept of the painting itself.....the visual story I'm telling, but I also have an artistic intent. Usually its a technique I want to try to learn about , thru actually using it in a painting. In this case I wanted to see just how little detail I could manage to include, without loosing the form I was painting.
In the case of the face and hand, in the section above, I really enjoyed using a broad brush stroke to indicate the mass of the hands, the cool lavender on the tops of the fingers with the warmer colored shadow strokes between the fingers.
In this crowd detail.......
I tried really hard to see just how many details I could omit, and still have the individual forms and gestures read correctly. I did have fun smudging things back, every time I stayed true to my normal habits.....and added too many details. I tried, instead of adding details, to give quick brush strokes of a vibrant shadow color or a swoosh of a highlight of a colored T shirt.
Practice of a variant of my usual working habits takes a bit of getting used to......but is rewarding in the results.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 7/1/2016
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Detail of Piecing Life Together
18 x 24 inches acrylic paint on gessoed masonite
My photo references and imagination
This painting is a bit of an experiment for me. True, it does have people in it, and it's an acrylic painting on gessoed masonsite,which is nothing new for me, but...... I've decided to add words to the mix. In the past I've often come up with titles for my paintings that add something to the meaning of the image......so I finally thought I'd go ahead and actually insert the text IN the picture. As it's often done in another of my jobs.....children's picture book illustration.
I decided for my painting, Piecing Life Together, to show parts of an everyday scene and add in the text as a graphic element. The detail below shows a Saturday morning breakfast table, with cereal circles falling from an overturned box, the falling treat eagerly awaited by a gleeful puppy.
I painted the individual details with Golden OPEN Acrylics, that stay wet and usable for a lot longer period of time than standard acrylics. This gives me a welcome amount of time to mix colors both on the canvas and pre-mix them on the palette, either of which is a change from my usual working methods. It also allows for a pleasing amount of blending, which is great for skin textures. I'm really enjoying seeing just what a difference an itty bitty nudge of a dab of paint can make.
I worked on other areas of the painting then planned out the kind of text I wanted to use.
I printed it out and traced it off onto the painting. Then I carefully painted the text in changing bits of the letters as I went along.
Even tho' I've signed this painting, I still consider it a “Work In Progress”, and I may yet make some changes. But I do really like the bits I've got so far.......and the total concept.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 6/24/2016
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What She Saw
11 x 14 inches
acrylic on gessoed masonite
my reference photos
I painted this portrait of Frank with the idea of doing a portrait, but I also wanted to show him in “his” place where he “fits”. I luv doing portraits with a little “value added”, that tell the viewer something about the portrait subject.
I started out with a lovely snap shot I'd taken a “few” years ago. (Hence the title.....I took the photo....so it's “What She Saw”) I painted him in just a couple of sessions. I used some OPEN acrylics that stay wet longer and allowed for some great blending.
But what to do with the background?
I tried changing the shirt color in Photoshop......nope, nope, nope! None of these helped. Then I decided to instead change the background. I found a pic I'd taken of one of our barns and surrounding greenery. I painted in the background around the portrait of Frank.....and that led to me settling on a dark blue for his shirt.
I like the way his hair and face coloring stood out from the surrounding busy background......it emphasized HIM, which is after all what a portrait is supposed to do!
By: Alison Lyne,
on 6/17/2016
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White Kat
8x10 inches on illustration board
Various watercolors and prisma colored pencils
My reference photo
This time around I'm talking about mixing my media again. White Kat is a mix of watercolour and colored pencils. White Kat went over the rainbow bridge a few years ago, but her lovely almost pure white coat, remains an artistic inspiration even today!
Before getting started with my watercolors, I used a wax colored pencil (Prisma) and drew in some white whiskers spreading out from her muzzle. I first layered in a nicely dark greeny/bluey/purply watercolour wash, with just a few yellow highlights. Just for good measure I sprinkled on some salt where I wanted to highlight a bit of twigs and leaves. This left me with a lovely background to work on later. While I had the watercolors out, I ghosted in some warm highlights for her fur. I kept them warm 'cause the light on her was late afternoon, and it provided a good color contrast with the cool background.
Then I started to work her fur over with my Prisma colored pencils. It didn't take much as the watercolor had responded wonderfully to some lite whisking with a damp brush to indicate fur. I had a ball working in her lovely green glowing eyes, leaving just a hint of the original paper showing thru for the highlights.
Finally I went back into the background with my colored pencils. I used my white colored pencil to reaffirm her white whiskers and show her fur tips against the background. The darker background watercolor washes had “stayed away” from the wax whisker lines I'd laid down in the beginning. I took just about all the dark colored Prismas I had on hand and started drawing teeny tiny dark circles on the dark background to show additional texture. The little salt sparkles, left when the salt crystals slurped up the surrounding watercolors were a perfect target for a colored pencil circle. I used slightly lighter colored pencil circles around the brighter leaves and added in a highlighted branch and wood fence post for a finish.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 6/9/2016
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Recently I was commissioned to do a house portrait of a small brick home and surrounding buildings. It was painted from various photos supplied by the client, and was to be set in the spring. This commission came at a great time for my ongoing colour studies.
I set myself an artistic technique goal within the commission's outlines: I wanted to replicate the muted less saturated or grayed tones of the photos while keeping the 4 step values that show mid day sunlight and shadows. My “normal” work flow is to use a series of acrylic glazes to get the values while emphasizing the colour intensity. In this case I decided to switch to an opaque painting style......using my premixes of Golden OPEN colours to maintain the right values/hues over various painting sessions.
I started out with the usual suspects of a medium red, cobalt blue and a yellow. I added in a phthalo green, raw umber, and ultramarine blue for my darkest darks. I premixed a drab olive green, and an almost black grey green, a redish dark and a slightly lavender dark. You can see where I stored these premixes in the itty bitty capped plastic containers. They kept the OPEN acrylics wet through out the two months or so I was painting on this commission. I used the grayed lavender mixing dish to pull the color slightly towards blue for highlit surfaces....i.e roof, driveway and asphalt road. I pulled it towards red for shadows in the brick house.
Lately I've seen pics from some websites, that are color swatches, showing 4 or 5 colors that go well together. They can be used for inspiration for color schemes for anything from interior decorating to coloring books. This is a color swatch I made for this painting:
This swatch was done AFTER the painting was finished....NOT before as a useful color reference might be. But it is very useful to 'splain back to myselves just how color theory can work. I've been reading lot from the lovely painting books by James Gurney of Dinotopia fame.
he suggests that gamut masking can suggest a wide range of colors that will “hang together” no matter the subject. The “why” for that can be shown with my home made color wheel and a triangle cut out of frosted plastic.
The open triangle shows the colors that appear in the painting, which were “copied” from a real to life photo. The muted reds,lavenders, blues and greens “hang together” because they appear in adjunct spots on the color wheel outlined by the triangle....or a triad color scheme.
In my next painting I definitely want to try this kind of color exercise BEFORE I start to paint.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 6/3/2016
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We attended the Clarksville Montgomery County Arts and Heritage Development Council's annual Clarksville Writer's Conference yesterday, where I gave two workshops.
They were: Making of a Picture Book from Manuscript to Book Shelf-
Learn a bit about the children's book publishing industry and how you as a writer or illustrator can start your journey. Whether it's traditional publishing or self-publishing, the steps to a successful children's picture book are the same. Learn how writers, illustrators and publishers work to make a manuscript the best picture book it can be.
How to Think Like an Illustrator or the Art of the Dummy-
We'll discuss how an illustrator takes your picture book manuscript and breaks it down into page size bites, and what you, as the author, can do to make your manuscript “illustrator ready”. We will look at original manuscripts vs the finished book, and dissect how it was done. We will talk about a picture book dummy (mock up of a real book) and why you should do one.
I had a fantastic time, and so enjoyed talking to all the fine folks who showed up for the talks.
I had a couple of handouts that I wanted to post, in case someone didn't get a copy.
Resource list for good info for your writing journey:
You can find these books and magazines at bookstores or online:
And a copy of the handy dandy all purpose book chart:
Thanks SO much to the Council, the kind sponsers, APSU, and the lovely volunteers!
And thanks to all y'all who showed up for my talks. It's wonderful to give a (writer's) party.....and have such lovely folks show up.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 5/2/2016
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I am an invited speaker at an upcoming writer's conference, in Clarksville, TN. The conference is the Clarksville Writers Conference that is put on by the Clarksville Montgomery County Arts & Heritage Development Council. This is the link:
The faculty is diverse, and is mostly for adults, but they do have some speakers that tend towards kid lit. I'm the only speaker that will talk specifically about picture books.....from an illustrator's perspective. I know.....I know.....it's a "writers conference".....but some of my best friends are writers! Especially the authors of the books I've illustrated.
I'm doing two workshops on June 2nd. My workshop blurbs are:
Making of a Picture Book from Manuscript to Book Shelf-
Learn a bit about the children's book publishing industry and how you as a writer or illustrator can start your journey. Whether it's traditional publishing or self-publishing, the steps to a successful children's picture book are the same. Learn how writers, illustrators and publishers work to make a manuscript the best picture book it can be.
How to Think Like an Illustrator or the Art of the Dummy-
We'll discuss how an illustrator takes your picture book manuscript and breaks it down into page size bites, and what you, as the author, can do to make your manuscript “illustrator ready”. We will look at original manuscripts vs the finished book, and dissect how it was done. We will talk about a picture book dummy (mock up of a real book) and why you should do one.
As always, about any conference.....DO YOUR RESEARCH.....to seeif it will be of interest or use to you.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 4/28/2016
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Blue Vase
This past week I've had some interesting interactions with people who have viewed my art.
This is the last week of my art show at the Logan County Library in Russellville KY. Various librarians have remarked that they've had a few comments on the artwork. One that was repeated was: “Isn't that painting of the blue vase hung upside down??”
On the one hand I'm pleased that people are looking at my artwork close enough to wonder what's going on with each painting. BUT I'm also confused with the question. In MY mind I know that I painted this vase laying abandoned in the melting snow, with the sun glowing thru the glass. I believed that I had included enough “visual info” to say that to a viewer. That question leaves me wondering if I did my job as an illustrator......
This is one of my business cards I designed a while back. It's also the basis for the blog logo at the top of the page and my FB banner.
The other day I handed this card to a person so's they could email me some info. He looked at the card and then shot me a quizzical look.....and asked me if I did local CLEANING jobs!! Not hearing him totally because of the background noise I replied, that I did picture book illustrations along with house/people/pet portraits.
As you can tell from this exchange.....we were BOTH talking past each other!
Later, Frank pointed out the “disconnect” in the exchange. I have to assume that in a context that had nothing to do with children's picture books, or artwork the term “illustrator” just did not register with this person. Sorta kinda like when Charlie Brown is talked to by a teacher.....all the audience “hears” is “Blah, blah, blah”
On the card the only visual to give a clue is my little girl carrying a huge brush, a pail of paint and walking in her stocking feet. This was my visual for “Walk Softly and Carry a BIG Brush”.
An adaptation to Teddy Roosevelt's quote: “Walk softly and carry a big stick”
Again out of context, I can see where this visual could be construed as someone carrying a washing bucket and mop.
My take away for all this is that an artist can't have too many “eyes on the artwork” prior to a show or publication of the art. The more critiques or editorial advice a illustrator gets, the more likely a lot of these opinions (misguided or not) can be addressed. After all, in the case of a picture book, the illustrator is hoping that THOUSANDS of eyes will eventually “see” the artwork.....and that most of those little eyes will “read” into that artwork exactly what the artist intended.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 4/18/2016
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I wanted to let everyone know that I, along with a “few” (about 150 plus) other talented folks will be at the Southern Kentucky Book Festival, at the Knicely Center in Bowling Green KY on Saturday April 23rd, from 9 to 3.
It's a great time to see favorite authors( and illustrators), hear them speak and meet new authors (and illustrators) if you're so inclined.
I, along with a few of my fav Midsouth SCBWI friends; David Arnold, Susan Eaddy, Aileen Stewart, Kristin Tubb, Mary Uhles, Amanda Driscoll, Jessica Young, Donna Driver, Courtney Stevens, Bethany Griffin, Tracy Barrett, Sharon Cameron,Lois Sepahban, Brooks Benjamin, Gail Nall, will be there along with the ever popular “Many Minnie More”.
Do come to listen to the authors/illustrators discuss their work, mingle with other book lovers, and maybe get a book or two for your Christmas gift list....you can be one of those annoying smug folks that finish their Christmas gift list earlier than December 24th!
But most of all come 'cause it's a great BOOK party.
See you there.
By: Alison Lyne,
on 4/11/2016
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8x10 Coloured Prismacolor pencils
over acrylic glazed background
on bristol board. My photo reference
This post is about a recent doggie portrait I painted. The subject is our faithful (to two separate families at the same time) pup pal, PEPPER, who passed over the rainbow bridge last year.
I took a photo I had of Pepper, and decided I was going to “paint” her in coloured pencils.
Since my main interest was the Pepper herself, I decided to rough in a mottled background in a light ocher acrylic glaze. I covered her drawing in a frisket cutout and sponged an acrylic wash over the background. I could be a bit sloppy in it's application since I had protected the drawing beforehand, and I've found that coloured pencils work over a thin acrylic glaze with ease.
After the glaze dried, I set to work with my coloured pencils. I started with her expressive eyes first, then roughed in more of her face. I “reserved” the white on her muzzle, chest and paws and worked around those areas with the various browns, dark colours and blacks of her coat.
I also reserved till the last some furry highlights on her black coat. Even with pre-planning, her longish fur gave me a bit of trouble.....showing highlights while maintaining her black fur. It didn't really help that she'd just had a “rough cut” haircut.....the only kind she would allow. She really wanted to hold onto all the cockle burs she picked up running thru the fields chasing after bunnies.
THE Pepper is on display at the Logan County Public Library for the month of April.
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